The Jets won’t end 2020 with a winless season. They won’t join the 2008 Lions or 2017 Browns with that title and for that I’m glad. It’s all good fun when you’re not a fan of those teams to watch and hope for the rare occurence, but for the fans, players and staff I don’t imagine it’s fun at all.

Many are lambasting the Jets for winning and taking themselves out of contention to draft Trevor Lawrence at the top of the draft. The pick now moves to the Jaguars who move up to the top spot by virtue of an weaker schedule. It’s not ideal of course when there’s a QB prospect who’s being billed as the best since Andrew Luck, but it’s not the end of the world.

For a start, the Jets get the second pick and they still have Sam Darnold. Darnold is still only 23 years old (younger than Joe Burrow and only two years older than Lawrence or Justin Field and with three seasons of NFL football under his belt). Mekhi Becton has been a good installment at tackle and with the second pick, the Jets could solidify the offensive line with Penei Sewell out of Oregon who many consider to be one of the best tackle prospects of recent years. In two years, the Jets could have completley transformed their offensive line. They also have the Seahawks first round pick courtesy of the Jamal Adams trade so there’s room to improve further be that at wide receiver or edge rusher – both areas of need.

Darnold is also very likely to get a new coach (again) and if GM Joe Douglas decides to carry on with Darnold he can bring in a coach that is willing and keen to work with Darnold. Darnold’s coaching hasn’t been good enough. I still believe there’s a top quarterback waiting to come out and should the Jets bring in an offensive minded head coach (I mean an actual one, not Adam Gase) then he could realise the potential we all believed was there when Darnold entered the draft. The Jets could look at Joe Brady the offensive coordinator at the Panthers who’s turned around that offensive unit (without their best player) following a year where he helped make Joe Burrow a superstar at LSU. Other options could be Eric Bieniemy from the Chiefs or Matt Campbell the current Iowa State coach who has been impressing in the college game.

I’m sure most Jets fans will still be in the duldroms after seemingly missing out on Trevor, but let’s remember – there’s no gaurantee that he’ll be superstar in the NFL, there’s been plenty of quarterbacks taken No.1 who haven’t.

Main Image credit: “Sam Darnold” by slgckgc is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/